Kenya Contains Typhoid Outbreak

Kenyan health authorities say they have contained an outbreak of typhoid fever in the western part of the country.

Provincial medical officer Olango Onudi says 174 people have been admitted to hospitals in Kenya's Western Province with typhoid symptoms within the past month, and five have died from the disease. But he says the disease is now under control.

"The number of typhoid cases we have seen in the last one month are much more than what we have been seeing in the past," he said. "It has overshot the normal figure by over 70 percent, and that's why we're calling it an outbreak. But currently it's under control."

Mr. Onudi says contaminated water is to blame for the outbreak. The chlorine that was supposed to treat the water, he says, had past its expiration date and was therefore ineffective.

Mr. Onudi says health authorities are containing the outbreak by treating water sources with chlorine, providing free chlorine tablets to households, urging people to use latrines, and monitoring the chlorine level in the water on a daily basis.